Ubuntu 17.04 Alpha 2 Released, Available to Download Now

As is typical of this stage in the Ubuntu development cycle there’s not an awful lot of change clear in some of the participating flavors. Don’t get me wrong: they’re functional and ripe for testing, but they’re just sort of ‘there’ at the moment.

You can download alpha 2 images of Kubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin and Ubuntu MATE from here.

Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 Alpha 2

Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 Alpha 2 ships with GNOME 3.22, though a few apps (notably Nautilus and GNOME Terminal) stay on version 3.20.

As well as supporting the installation and management of Snap apps Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 also has Flatpak installed by default. If you’ve been itching to try Flatpak’d apps and run times, this release makes it super easy to do so.

But secondly, the feathered one also has some ‘new stuff’ that I can screenshot is worth mentioning, like an updated Budgie Welcome app that includes — choice, ahoy — a browser ballot screen:

Ubuntu Budge 17.04 ships with Chromium as the default web-browser, but the handy ballot screen helps point those who want to use something else, namely Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Vivaldi, in the necessary direction.

If it’s your first time toying with the bird you’ll also notice some key app differences, such as the use of Terminix as the default terminal emulator and GNOME-MPV in place of Totem, and a souped up version of Rhythmbox that looks (imo) better than the stock version does.

Like other Zesty Zapus snapshots there’s also the Linux 4.9 kernel to enjoy, too.

Remember that it’s early days for this distro and, as it kicks the tires on the infrastructure, testing and QA, you shouldn’t be too surprised if you’re left holding broken pieces. (Psst, take a read over the known issues too.)